Yesterday the Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium published Taking Out Illegal Website Operations (subscription required). This is a fairly short article describing law enforcement's efforts to remove child pornography purveyor Freedom Hosting, money laundering operation Liberty Reserve, and black market Amazon clone Silk Road.
This is my third article for TRAC. The previous two include a write up on Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden, and Major General James Cartwright, entitled Three Insider Leaks and Anonymous Raids Syrian Electronic Army, an assessment by Matt Osborne and I of twelve gigabytes of content that was available from an intrusion into one of SEA's major forums.
Two major and interlinked issues of note include the perceived necessity to review the focus of current military engagement by both NATO and the EU, and the strategic importance of both the African Continent and the Atlantic Ocean, which are in fact interrelated and of vital importance to Europe. It is critical to increase serious investments in port facilities and services on the western seaboard of the African Continent, and in so doing to forge affiliations with the African states based on enduring historic relationships. We must deepen these relationships with due recognition of national needs, heritage, and ambitions, and thus strengthen regional blocks of like-minded African nations. This article will try to fuel crucial discussions for unconventional and progressive approaches instead of characterizing them a “enemy thinking” or “perceived hostile acts.”
It has already been established that the African Continent has the fastest growing population in the world. This boom will cause Africa to surpass both China's and India's populations by 2025, less than 15 years away. The combined poplations of Asia, including China and India, will still exceed Africa's.
Are tablets the salvation of the newspaper industry? Google’s chief economist thinks they may be. In a speech he recently gave in Milan, Hal Varian points to the ways consumers’ usage of tablets differs from that of other devices. Writer Will Conley summarizes:
“Varian said tablets are the most newspaper-like electronic medium due to their status as ‘leisure time’ reading devices. Citing a Pew Foundation study, Varian pointed out that tablets are the preferred electronic news reading medium for mornings and evenings—during which readers spend the most time absorbing the news—beating out both desktop and smartphones for those periods. Ad revenue depends on the amount of time spent reading the news, he said, and therefore the proliferation of tablets will help the online newspaper industry to gain a new foothold for the first time in 40 years.”
Varian believes tablets might even prompt users to devote more time to reading news, restoring the “analytic depth” that has been eroding along with our attention spans. It’s a nice vision. Unfortunately, an article at Gigaom that came out on the same day as Conley’s piece takes a contradictory stance. Gigaom contributor Jon Lund explains “Why Tablet Magazines are a Failure.” (I think we can extrapolate his points to periodicals in general.)
Here is what I believe is a correct assessment concerning the creation of the national security state in which we live today. Absurd amounts of money have been spent, and civil liberties abridged to an unprecedented degree, on the basis of a threat consisting of little gangs. It is transparently disproportionate, there has to be something underneath that.! I believe it results from a long-term strategic assessment of what is going to happen with climate change. Since 1991 I have been following and publishing stories on this trend. It's very clear, on the basis of the scientific research in the open literature, that it is going to cause massive disruption, and social disorder. I am sure there are lots of other studies that are classified that say the same thing, perhaps in greater detail, and with a security perspective not usually found in open research literature
By Major Rob Sentse[1] Bachelor. Infantry, Royal Netherlands Army
and Major Arno Storm, Bachelor. Infantry, Royal Netherlands Army
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
–Maya Angelou (American Poet, b.1928)
(This publication has been written on our personal title and does not refl ect the opinion of the Royal Netherlands Army.)
Sure, there are many cities around the world where you can hail a taxi or hitch a ride in a private car using a smartphone with apps like Uber and Lyft.
But Helsinki is taking that idea to the next level with on-demand public transit.
The capital city of Finland has an on-demand minibus service run by the city’s transit agency. Kutsuplus, as the service is called, lets you choose where you want to be picked up by the bus and if you want a private trip (like using Uber) or a shared ride. If you decide to share a ride, an algorithm will determine the best route for getting you to your destination and picking up others, but you’re only charged as if you’re the only passenger. The minibuses can accommodate up to nine passengers.
The cost of the service is 3.50 euros, plus 0.60 euros per kilometer. That’s more than a bus but less than a taxi, but as Wired points out, the point of it isn’t to replace either form of transit.
Despite its on-demand nature, Kutsuplus isn’t designed to put cabs out of business. Rather, it’s supposed to make it easier for motorists to switch to public transit. According to Kari Rissanen, a Program Director at the Helsinki Regional Transport Authority, Kutsuplus makes transit more attractive for those whose commutes would require multiple changes of buses or trains.
Kutsuplus is currently running as a pilot program with 10 minibuses. According to Wired, the could soon grow to 100.
– Downsize, transition, and then sustain a smaller, but ready and capable Total Army that provides Joint and Combined forces with expeditionary and enduring landpower for the range of military operations and features unique competencies such as operational leadership, mobility, command and control, and theater logistics at all echelons.
Raymond T. Odierno
Phi Beta Iota: To downsize effectively you have to have ethical evidence-based decision-support immediately applicable to strategy, policy, acquisitions, and operations. This does not exist. NGIC once upon a time had Tim Hendrickson and GRAND VIEW but they never made the leap to holistic analytics and true cost economics. Army flags — including the very best of them — simply do not know what they need to know to demand of the intelligence “professionals” what the latter have no clue how to produce. We have not seen a single useful strategic, policy, or acquisition document come out of DIA in the past twenty years…nor CIA. All these people are still in the cut and paste fluff mode that Col Mike Pheneger, USA (SOF) blew the whistle on in 1988. Nothing has changed in substance — just more people, more money, more (retarded) technology, and much less useful thinking.
Click on Image to Enlarge
[ENABLERS; EXPEDITIONARY; UNIFIED ACTION PARTNERS (UAPs)] – Support the Joint Force with critical enablers such as aviation, intelligence, engineers, logistics, medical, signal, and special operations, both while enroute to, and operating within, expeditionary environments alongside Unified Action Partners.
Phi Beta Iota: The Marine Corps led the way with Planning and Programming Factors for Expeditionary Operations in the Third World, and then lost its integrity and started chasing money instead of producing ethical evidence-based decision-support relevant to what General Al Gray wanted in the first place, compelling support for honest light-footprint low-cost acquisition (something the other four services need but refuse) along with strategic and operational support to what he called “peaceful preventive measures.” The Navy has imploded — as many Admirals as ships, and the whole lot of them are not worth anything in terms of rapid precision response, this leaves the Marine Corps both 4-6 days away from anywhere, and totally exposed (e.g. no Naval Gunfire, rotten CAP) once they get there. Army cannot do what it wants to do without an honest long-haul Air Force and a complete make-over of close air support (to include transfer of CAS to the Army) as well as reconnecting to reality at the geospatial, cyber, and cultural levels.
